A Promise to My Heart
by ocarinachild
Summary: So fearful it is to love something Death can touch - but in the end, she's only human -- sasukexoriginal
1. prologue

⌠ **a promise to my heart **⌡ 00 || prologue

There was nothing to salvage, nothing to save, nothing to rescue. Nara Shikaku stepped through the still smoldering, perfectly circular gateway and was overcome with a sense of hopelessness. Helplessness. Dread. Pessimism. Nara Shikaku could only stare and feel overwhelmed with a sense of loss he had not felt since the death of the fourth Hokage.

The central courtyard had been incinerated. Completely demolished. What used to be pale marble with silver inlay was now a pile of rubble. The elegant tangerine and cherry trees were mere stumps that gave off faint sparks every so often. Bodies weren't littered across the grounds so much as they were piled upon each other in heaps. Within one heap, he saw the hand of a child; neither twelve nor ten, but probably four years of age. It shone a bright, morbid red with blood and clutched at a shuriken.

Shikaku was sickened. He was also terrified. This was the complex that housed the Megamiko Clan, a clan of shinobi that found their roots long before the establishment of any Hidden Village. According to legend, they were the descendents of gods. Common knowledge, just everyday word of mouth, whispered the mysterious tales of the Megamiko.

And they were dead. In a single night, they ceased to exist.

"I want..." he croaked to the equally stunned medic-nin that trailed his every step, "...survivors. Search the entire estate, every nook and cranny, every closet. I want ... survivors ... and th–these bodies cleaned and identified ... I want... I want..."

One tear that he was not supposed to have shed broke free of his control. It slid down the roughened, scarred expanse of his cheek, onto his chin, and fell down into the pool of drying blood at his feet.

As he moved, his shoes left prints. As he moved, his sanity left slivers within his wake.

_Kami_. His thoughts could only process this. _Kami, Kami! KAMIII!!_ Not with any of the reason he was famed for. Not with any calmness and temper. Just the sensation that no one had any control. _Oh my god... oh my god._

* * *

It was black. It was black and cold and empty and silent.

Not the night. Never the night. The night had stars to guide the lost home. The night, even in winter, held the warmth of fire burning somewhere. The night was fill to the brim with fauna that croaked and creaked and howled and groveled.

This was not the night. Dawn had always followed night, a promise of a new day, an oath of a new beginning that would come again and again and again, without fail.

But this darkness, this black, it was frightening because it promised, without fail, that this was all there is and will ever be.

I cannot see, I cannot hear, I cannot feel, I cannot smell, I cannot taste anything beyond this darkness. I was completely numb to any kind of stimuli.

I tried to scream but found that there was no air. I tried to move, to reach out, but found that I could not move.

I tried to cry but found to something just short of astonishment that I no longer existed.

* * *

"None," the medic-nin murmured quietly. Nara Shikaku looked long and hard at the boy, who looked no more than seventeen. There, in his eyes, there was a wildness that flickered about his dark brown eyes. It was wild and terrified, like a cornered animal in the eyes of a serpent. "We've ... found no one. O-only c-c-corpses..."

"...how many? How many bodies are there?" asked Shikaku of another medic-nin. Here was a woman who had seen many years of bloodied bodies, gaping wounds, and innards spilled across the shinobi arena.

"One hundred and nine, Nara-san." She replied, small and stiff. Even she was frightened. She, a woman who had seen the wars of decades and had her hairs grayed by them, was frightened. "But among them, a few were outsiders."

"Outsiders?"

"Nine known mercenaries, a Swordsman of the Mist... two, I think, are the strongest shinobi from the Village Hidden in the Rocks."

"That makes ... ninety seven Megamiko dead. How many members of the Megamiko family do we have in total?"

Hatake Kakashi stepped forward, a fluttering eye showing, dreading, observing with disbelief. "One hundred and four. Of the seven missing, Ronin is on a mission abroad."

Someone keeled over and retched into a puddle of blood. Soft sobs were heard from around the large, sprawling complex. A boy, probably ten years of age, had been brutally pinned to a large wooden door. His lower half was a mess, to say the least; immortalized on his face was a scream. His eye (the other had been plucked out) seemed to stare out at the shinobi who stood awestruck, many feet before him.

His mouth was widened to its largest extent, and when Nara Shikaku stared at him, he could almost hear the child's last shriek

* * *

And, out of the darkness, came her voice.

"I want her soul."

In any other context, by any other voice, that statement would have been depraved, sickening, and just plain weird.

From this darkness that I could not escape was her voice; her voice ... it was warm and soothing, and as her voice glistened with glowing fluidity and unnamable familiarity, I knew that could exist once more. It was a flare of light, a shimmering, iridescent gleam of hope.

"Why?" A silken, glacial voice sounded, curious and deadly. I felt it coil around me. I felt it drive away the warmth. "Why do you take such an interest in her, Amaterasu?"

"You need not know why; her importance to me is none of your concern."

The response was a shrill cackle of delirious laughter. "What's in it for me, sister dear?"

"Ten of my golden wolves," The woman bartered, chilly annoyance slipping through the warmth that was her normal voice. "That, and the past one hundred sacrifices."

"My dear, I have no want for past sacrifices, I want fresh—"

"Fine, you bloodthirsty bastard!!" screamed the irate woman. "The next one hundred! The next thousand!"

A pause ensued, and I grew scared. Her voice, her voice, I couldn't hear, I couldn't feel it...

"Done," was the sibilant response; his voice seemed to echo softly and I could feel myself being shifted from one place to another. The surroundings warmed, they brightened, and even within myself, a sort of kinship to this new place, this new heaven, a haven.

"—her body?" The man, I think it was a man, asked, curious like a great big cat that saw a new type of prey.

"I have already retrieved her body," the woman clipped brusquely. She paused for a moment, and then continued, a new emotion seeping through her levees. The levees, they were breaking, "I couldn't believe ... what had happened... Her brother, her sister, and two score of the world's greatest fighters, killed them, all ninety seven of them. Susanoo and Tsukiyomi will not be happy. Ben-chan and Shina-chan the same. I don't even want to think what Kagu-Suchi-, O-Wata- and Nai-No -sukes would do when they find out…"

"Ahh ... she is from that clan?"

"Hai."

"But that still does not explain why you have such an interest in her."

"Why does not matter. The only thing that matters right now is her revivification." A pause, as her voice caught and squirmed. With a façade of catty snobbishness, she continued. "That's your cue to leave."

"Very well, Ama-san. Just remember the consequences; you know them well, and I hope this child is worth it."

"You concern is touching, but I remember telling you to leave." The woman clipped dispassionately. I felt a shift in the surroundings and all vestiges of the cold, unending darkness disappeared. The air, or rather, the space, since it cannot really be called air, brightened and heated as the dark and cold was chased away, far away. His presence receded, and I was left in the cradle of the sun, a place of incredible bliss, tranquility, and permanence, one that was without the hopelessness of the dark I had been drowning in before. It was hard to believe that just seconds (or had it been years?) ago, despondency was all that I knew.

I could only hear the soft swishing of silk in the background, the muted click of diamond on porcelain, a hushed heart, pulsing away in the distance, and the winds whispering tritely treacherous things.

"Kira?"

Her voice blossomed out of the light in a flowering flare of tenderness and hesitation, like gold upon yellow, silver upon white.

"Kira ... I'm not sure if you can hear me," murmured the feminine and maternal voice, one that had its façade of confidence breach faintly, showing uncertainty and anxiety. "And if you can ... you will not remember... this is not what I wished for you; it is not something I would wish on anyone, but it is for the best — I am sorry."

And through the background hum, there was a distinct sound of a drop of water falling into a small pool. Heat flashed and burned and pushed at me. I felt the weight of the earth on my shoulders, the pressure of the sea on my body, the pull of the air in my lungs, the scorching fire upon every surface of my body, pain of the world on my mind. There was pain, pain that I was sure that no person could ever survive, should ever survive.

I might have screamed, but I could not recall doing so. Shrieks bounced about my conscience, echoes of my own unsounded cries.

A truly potent anesthesia graced so lightly upon my wrists, my upper arms, my ankles, my thighs, my forehead, my neck, my back, and my chest. From those small points, they spread out, exorcising the pain until the initial bliss returned and all was left of the hurt was the woosh-woosh of my blood in my ears.

"When the day comes, I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me."

* * *

"Nara-san! NARA-SAN!! We have a heartbeat! We have a heartbeat!!!" A young intern shouted from beside a long line of corpses. He had and seven others had been assigned the task of cleaning the remains and identifying them; after laboring away for more than seven hours, he had finally reached the last few bodies, one of which belonged to an emaciated girl with blood-stained hair that might have been a brilliant silver. In the middle of gently rinsing down her bloodied limbs, he felt a pulse start and grow beneath his hand. He had held the hand in disbelief; at times, it had paused and stopped altogether. Then it sped up and pounded away, only to splutter and beat erratically.

He quickly scanned for wounds across the body; there were none that could have possibly been fatal; just two leg wounds that nearly amputated her left knee and a deep gash that ran from her right elbow to her wrist. He disbelievingly placed two fingers to the girl's neck, only to be shocked and repelled by the weak pulse that whispered quietly at his fingertips.

"WE HAVE A PULSE!!" He screamed, garnering the attention of everyone on the Megamiko estate. Eyes, eyes with hatred and ire and annoyance, glanced his way, completely set in grief. After all, all the bodies had been checked and double-checked for any signs of life more than five hours ago. How was it possible? The intern had got to be joking. That, or he was delusional.

"What are you doing?" A dangerous voice hissed from behind. Mitarashi Anko stood alongside Nara Shikaku, her face etched with revulsion and disdain, her eyes shining from a fresh layer of unshed tears. "If you think this is funny, I recommend you go buy yourself a conscience and a new sense of humor."

"But—" The intern protested indignantly, only to have his complain cut off by a curt jerk of Shikaku's head. He knelt down to brush a lock of hair from the doll-like child's face.

"Go home; it's almost light and we are nearly done, Hideki—"

Shikaku's command was cut short by a sharp and desperate intake of breath.

Her eyelids had fluttered, betraying irises of steel and sky.

Everyone fell silent, waiting, anticipating, not entirely believing...

With wide eyes, Anko kneeled into the pool of red, coppery water and grasped the hand.

"There's a pulse..." she breathed as she watched Kira's formerly still chest rise and fall. "There's a p-p... WE HAVE A SURVIVOR. I WANT MEGAMIKO KIRA TRANSPORTED TO KONOHA HOSPITAL THIS INSTANT!"

A cheer rose from the silence that shrouded Megamiko estate and resonated all parts of Konoha.

* * *

My tongue felt dry and enormous within my mouth.

I take that back -- my entire oral cavity was in dire wont of any form of hydration. My tongue actually felt like sawdust, my gums might as well be the cuticles of a desert-dweller, my teeth ached, my throat and lungs seared with the texture of sandpaper but felt with sensitivity of an infant's eyeballs with every breath I drew and released.

Speaking of eyeballs, mine were stiff and apparently sealed from disuse. Still, I could see feel light just before me, a bright red through my membranous eyelids.

Kira, Kira, a part of my mind whispered, a voice that might not be a voice, but rather the breath of the wind as it streams past a willow tree, the sigh of the stream as it winds across polished pebbles, its time to wake up.

Just let me sleep a little more, I wanted to say. I'm so tired, so so tired.

_Its time to wake up child; your adventure starts today._

* * *

**Author's Note**

050909

Ah.... yes. I am still alive.

Well, here it is. A Promise to My Heart, revamped. Its just the prologue, but anyone should be able to see the next two rewritten chapters by ... July? I can't guarantee them any sooner, as I have two AP exams within the next week, two sweet sixteens in the next three weeks, my SAT IIs on June 6, my ACT exam on the saturday following, and then my fabulous finals. Welcome to hell, AKA Junior Year.

But don't despair! Lyra will actually finish APtMH if its the last thing I do. Why? Because I intend on having this completed and renown enough so it is protected from any possible idiot who thinks they can get away from plagiarising my work. Yes, Lia Diaz, I am speaking to you.

The original APtMH can be read on quizilla (dot) com, under the user SkyDancer15's (ME, MYSELF, and I) work. The latest journal has a link to this account, ocarinachild. This version will be completely different from the original only in the first eight or so chapters; expect updating to pick up from chapters 8 to 25 and slow down from then to the end.

heartskisses&&feedback -- A. Lyra. T-Z.


	2. renaissance, renaissance

⌠ **a promise to my heart **⌡ 01 || renaissance, renaissance

_Its time to wake up dear child; your adventure starts today._

There was a slight pinch just a little left of my spine, a drip of pain that registered in my mind and my body raced to retaliate.

In retrospect, I remember seeing sleepies in the corner of my eye, I remember feeling the overall stiffness in my limbs, I remember the sliver of light that infiltrated my eyes, a mellow, waning glow of the evening sun.

But in that moment, I could only comprehend that someone had forced something sharp and all the while unwelcome into my back. I reached back with a speed that I should not have had and with an ancient sort of tiredness that was shocking and not at all welcome.

The person, whose arm I had seized and bent behind her back, cried out in shock; another person in the room drew in a rapid breath, also from alarm.

_What are you doing?_ I wanted to say. _Why are you trying to kill me in my sleep?!_

But what came out instead was this: "Kj akdfj tuouwt? Wahgua Klajgedfuttln asgd huafoalkpwt?!"

That didn't sound quite … right.

It was hard to believe that this feral little creature had once been Kira Megamiko, the Golden child of Konohagakure — golden despite all her flamboyantly silver coloring.

Or, perhaps, all that remained of her at that one moment had been her silver hair, her wide sea-stained silver eyes, her nigh colorless, save for that faintest of rose hues that adorned her cheeks, skin…

* * *

She had nearly taken Shikaku's breath away when she leapt out of her cot, twisted the nurse's arm up and around in a way that was sure to be painful, and pinned said nurse like a bug between her left palm and knee and floor.

Had he blinked, he would have missed it all. Shikaku had forgotten just how fast a child of the Megamiko family could be. It had been so long, _too_ long…

And then she opened her mouth. Mumbo jumbo, nonsensical jibberish, blatherings of an idiot had spilled forth. Shikaku's eyebrows shot up; little in the world was able to cue such surprise – not Shikamaru's odd fascination with clouds, not the Hokage's um… _interesting_ photos from his youth, and not even his wife's rather disturbing little fetish for BDSM (or even his own enjoyment of it.)

If she had been anything, Kira Megamiko had been articulate, loquacious, garrulous, verbally eloquent and bellicose.

She sprung up from the groaning nurse's back and stepped, _stumbled_, backwards. Almost as a second thought, she reached back and pulled out the litany of needles that had been slid into key muscle points by the nurse and dropped them to the floor, where they made soft clicks against the floor and nearly musical _tings_ against each other. She did not sit down, but instead, stared blankly at the needles, and raised her small hands to her mouth.

Her fingers did not touch her lips, but rather, they hesitated just millimeters from her mouth. She opened her mouth, but closed it. Her childish hands, still yet to completely cast off the baby fat, balled into fists. She blinked once.

"Megamiko-san?"

* * *

"Megamiko-chan?" The man in the corner called out. I did not truly hear, I did not at all respond. "Megamiko-chan? Megamiko. Kira!"

At this, I jerked, I turned to face him, unsure of whether he was calling to the woman who I had forced to the ground or to me. _Kira?_ How familiar it sounded; not a lullaby of a childhood past, but a burden, nearly…

I studied the man. He, like the woman (who was rubbing her back in the far corner), was significantly taller than I was. His face was littered with scars, the most prominent of which spanned his right cheek. He wore a white overcoat, with a dark green vest and a black, loosely fitted body suit beneath that. His arms across, and beneath the gruff veneer, a hue of surprise colored his face.

"Kira Megamiko," he said, the sounds both recognizable and alien at once.

"Ligjgaw, skiwo tioss orkkokzoo." I replied, but quieted as I realized how completely wrong my words were. I locked my elbows as I leaned on the small dresser for support. Light seemed to flare until it just about blinded me, but the man and the woman remained unaffected. I choked on nothing, my ears rang with the sound of trumpets, and all over I felt stinging. My legs shuddered, my arms buckled. "Jlqutydh. Nagjaxjo."

The blinding light vanished in a heartbeat as the sun set beyond the walls of Konoha, framed perfectly by the western window.

I collapsed into a heap.

_Ah… perhaps not so soon, child. It seems you are not yet ready. We will try again later._

* * *

Shikaku frowned at Kira, the silver lump, who lay inert at the edge of the bed. Stepping forward, he stretched out his leg and hesitantly nudged Kira's arm with his toe, almost expecting her clawed hands to shoot out, grab his foot, and start beating him against the wall like he had once seen her do with a rag doll.

"What on earth was that?" The nurse asked when Kira didn't react, her eyes remaining on the small girl. She was edging out of the room, and after Shikaku did not respond, she slammed the silk screen door and scuttled down the hallway.

"Good question, Akita-chan. The answer is: I have not a clue." Shikaku said to the empty room as he put his young, catatonic patient back into bed. She was once again a doll, the way she had been for the past year.

* * *

"It is possible," the Hokage muttered around his pipe as he spun two iron marbles in his left palm. "…is it possible? Kira's pulse was discovered many hours after they had initially checked for all signs of life, yes?"

Shikaku nodded and watched the old man pace back and forth, trying to see the lines of reasoning he followed. _What was he thinking?_ Shikaku was afraid to ask, afraid to know.

"Perhaps … our little Kitchan had already, actually, died in the massacre. But instead of – no; that is _not possible_."

The _impossibility_ hovered in the air between the two men.

"It is simply … _**not possible**_. It just isn't."

_[…is it…?]_

* * *

It was dawn, I realized. Eyes wide open, I stared out the eastern window, up through the thin foliage, at the sky. It was not yet light, the sky. Not the usual azure, but a dark navy-plum. I propped myself up on both elbows so I could look out the window; the sun was slowly rising above the distant walls.

As I pushed open the window, great gusts of wind streamed in, throwing the sheets off the tatami and rocking the small mirror on the north wall before flying out the open western window. The room, perhaps three meters by three meters, had large windows (which could be covered with sliding screens shades) on the northern, western, and eastern walls, with a screen door on the southern. Everything was sterile and various shades of white. The wooden floor had been bleached of its color, but I could still feel the woody texture beneath my feet when I stood up. The tatami were set on an elevated platform against the east wall. A small white dresser stood at attention beneath the mirror. I checked the drawers; the first two were empty. The third contained a little white yukata identical to the one I currently wore, three large rolls of bleached white bandages, and a pair of straw sandals that was two sizes too big.

The fourth and last drawer was locked. I frowned at it and kicked it. It didn't open, but my big toe did hurt.

The sun was rising properly now, and the streets outside began to wake up. I sat on my tatami mats with my arms hanging out the window, watching two sleepy men open up their respective shops. Within the next few minutes, delicious smells wafted up to my room, one of flowers, another of foodstuffs. I crouched on my windowsill and leapt onto the closest tree branch, jumping from branch to branch, tree to tree, until finally I reached the ground.

To say I reached the ground would be insinuating I did so with grace. I did not. On the last branch, one approximately fifteen feet above ground, I slipped and hit the earthy mulch with a graceless _oomph!_

"Oh my gods," a passing young woman wearing a flowery bandana over her brown hair ran up to my clumsy self. She asked, "Are you alright?"

Nothing really hurt except for the scratch above my left elbow, which bled sluggishly. I picked myself up without much difficulty and carelessly brushed off any dirt that stuck to my clothing and exposed limps. I shook wood chips out of my hair, which was actually really too long; it reached my hips, and as short as I was it was too much to handle.

"Yes," I said, this time without jibberish coming out of my mouth. I smiled at the girl, who now stared down at me (at this point, I realized I was a bit on the short side, seeing that all three people I had met so had to physically look down at me and I have to crane my head back to look at them) as if she was looking at a ghost. "Thank you."

She said nothing as she continued to stare. I shifted awkwardly from foot to foot. Perhaps she was in leagues with that Woman who had stabbed me with needles and that Man who just stood by and watched her do it. Finally, she swallowed and choked out, "Kira? Kitchan? …is that you?"

I shook my head.

I could tell that she wasn't fully convinced, but disregarding this, she took my hand and dragged me across the street to the shop from which delicious smells were coming from. She sat me on a spinning stool as she walked behind the counter. The older man whom I had seen opening up the shop looked up to greet the girl, but words stopped short in his throat when his eyes landed on me. In hushed tones, the girl whispered into his ear, and he didn't ask anything.

Both busied themselves with various things. A pot simmered in the corner. She chopped a few spring onions and bits of beef. He was preparing noodles. My stomach let out a roar that was unearthly and I realized I was famished.

The girl set a glass bottle with some liquid in it in front of me and then turned to throw the beef and spring onions into the broth. The man's noodles followed suit.

The girl gestured at the glass bottle, inviting me to open it. Around its top was a thin circle of foil. When I peeled this off, a light green piece of plastic fell off, revealing a marble. I stared her and she stared back. We were equally puzzled, but I felt that it was for different reasons. I picked up the bottled and looked at the girl through the marble. She looked funny, and I laughed. She shook her head, a small smile adorning her mouth, and took the bottle into her left hand and the small piece of plastic into her right, and with it, she pushed the marble into the liquid, which began to froth and foam. She set the bottle before me again and gestured for me to drink it.

I did and by doing so, I went to heaven.

"This is good!" I said excitedly and proceeded to down the entire bottle. She laughed and went to get another; the man set a bowl of noodles on the counter in front of me. I stared at it for a few seconds before letting out a monstrous burp. I felt the blush creep into my face. "Excuse me. Thank you."

"Eat up," he commanded imperiously and grandfatherly. How he could do both was beyond me. "_This_ is better."

I seized the chopsticks the man had provided and used them to pull out a huge wad of noodles, which went into my mouth. Around my mouth full of noodles, I mumbled out, "This _is_ better!"

The girl returned with another bottle and set it on the counter, right by the bowl of fantastic-ness. Both of them were staring at me, but at that moment I was too preoccupied with the noodles before me.

When I was done, the man spoke. "You _do_ look like her."

I turned to look at him, but the girl began to speak. "You have the same silver, the same height, the same Megamiko eyes… are you sure you're not our little Kira?"

I stared up at her, and just shrugged. I used the chopsticks to swirl the noodle broth around so that there was a localized whirlpool in my bowl. I tried to pluck the pink-and-white naruto out of the broth, to little success.

"So who are you? Are you a cousin? We haven't seen any Megamiko clansmen for a good, I dunno, year now…"

I shrugged again.

The two of them stared at each other. "What's your name, sweetie?"

At this, I stopped.

_My name? What is my name? Now why would they be asking that? What a stupid question. My name is…_

My hands clutched at my knees, but I could not find the answer I was looking for. I scowled as I saw that the blood from my left elbow had bled until it just about reached my wrist. I was trying to comb through my brain to find that precious pearl of information, of identity.

"Child, what is your name?"

But to no avail. I absently brushed away the blood with my thumb. Had I looked down at my wrist, closely, I would have seen a thin circlet of silver embedded into my skin, and when I spread the blood across it, a small spark raced up the length of my arm to the rest of my body, gathering strength and voltage as it spread to my other arm, which was now gripping the counter for support.

With wide, bewildered eyes, I whispered, "I … I don't … know…."

The spark grew into a bolt of lightning that leapt from my body to the girl and the man (both of whom dropped to the ground, unconscious) to the oven which flared in flames but faded, to the electricity cables overhead, and from there it ran to every corner of Konohagakure, lightly singeing just about everything.

* * *

The lights in the classroom flickered and died. The schoolchildren remained silent for one second and then another before erupting into hysterical screaming. Iruka ran around, shouting, trying to calm everyone down, but was just adding to the mayhem. In the hysteria, the girls flung themselves at the dark, brooding boy, whose arm was being … bitten by another boy, this one with the coloration of the sun and sky.

Welcome to Konoha Shinobi Academy, where nutcases are bred and mustered.

Soon enough, the fire alarm went off due to the faculty lounge and the target arenas being on fire. Water began sprinkling from the ceilings and students attempted to hastily exit the building, hastily being the operative adverb. Seeing that Naruto, the boy with corn silk hair and sky-blue eyes, had caused an impromptu game of the Human Knot in the doorway out of the classroom, egression was delayed. A few of the braver few, led by Sasuke, the reticent boy with hair like the night time sky, eyes of the deepest ocean, and a heart as cold to match, decided to hop out the window, much to Iruka's consternation. Sasuke could see no reason to this, as the classroom was on the ground floor.

On his way back home, Sasuke was blockaded by an ambulance unit that had been parked outside of Ichiraku Ramen Shop. He lingered about, trying to pass through or passing enough time to then pass through, be upon hearing that seven people had been hospitalized with minor burn injuries due to a yet unknown source, he decided to go the short way home.

The short way home, or rather, the short way to the Orphan's Ward, was the way that best connected the Ward to the Academy, but it was also the way that had an uncomfortable stretch of lonely pedestrian pathway between two high walls that once were well kept but now crept with ivy.

Chills ran down Sasuke's spine as he continued. He heard screams in his mind as he walked, and the heavy, painful feeling in his stomach grew and grew.

On his left was the main section of the Uchiha Clan Complex. On his right was the main section of the Megamiko Clan Estate. Both were completely empty. Both were the sites of mass murder. Only the Uchiha Complex, Konoha believed, was haunted; they dwelled in ignorance, believing that the entire Megamiko Clan had packed up their bags and was spending some quality time somewhere else. For a year. Without telling anyone where they had gone.

Sasuke snorted. And from his left, some one snorted back.

The chills vanished, and instead he was flooded with red hot rage. He turned to face the ivy covered stucco wall. At the base were several rotting apples, and overhead was a tree limb heavy with unpicked orbs of famous Uchiha apples. The ivy leading up towards that tree limb had been ripped out and flattened in sections, and the hatred in his stomach redoubled as Sasuke began to comprehend what was going on.

Someone was inside the Uchiha Complex. Someone was _stealing_ from the Uchiha Complex.

Barely touching the ivy, Sasuke vaulted over the wall and landed inside with grace and skill. It was a practiced movement, one that had been perfected years and years ago and one he retain even now, years and years without its use.

His landing startled the culprit. In a blur of silver, he ran into the maze that was the Uchiha Complex. His speed startled Sasuke, as the culprit ran with speed that matched if not surpassed his own. Crossing two fingers, he formed shadow clones and pursued the trespasser.

This was his home, after all. Even now, five years after he had stepped foot on his old home, he knew the place like the back of his hand. This part was the gardens section, the one with obsessively maintained apple trees, laurels, and magnolias. It was large as it surrounded the entire complex and in some pockets penetrated the residential homes as well. This part of the gardens had been spared of massacre only in the way that no blood had been shed here. The weeds overran the entire garden floor, the magnolia tree was dying, the apple tree was about to topple over, and the laurels were nowhere to be seen.

Two of his clones cornered the culprit in a dead end and had dragged him off the wall which he was climbing to escape, but they had vanished as soon as the real Sasuke rounded the corner. The culprit was attempting to scramble up the wall, but since this wall was clean of ivy, ascension was significantly more difficult. Striding up to him in long legs, Sasuke grabbed the intruder by the scruff of his yukata, flipped him about, and slammed him into the wall.

A child. He realized with a jolt. A child with arms and legs barely more robust than chopsticks. A child who came up to his shoulder. A child with long fluid silver hair and skin that was paler than his hair.

With his anger banished by his wonder and surprise, Sasuke stared limply at Kira Megamiko.

* * *

Quite the undignified position, if you must know.

I was being held up and against wall with a stone stabbing into my back with my feet hanging a good foot off the ground. I was a little above eye level with my attacker, and when he had slammed me against the wall, my head made contact with the stone behind me in a way that was not comfortable, to say the least. I felt some hot and wet surface where it hurt. My eyes swam as I tried to focus on my apprehender, whose face barely betrayed shock.

Had I been a little more clear minded, I would have protested the position.

I was held up against the wall by my yukata, which was wrinkled into his white-knuckled fists. His body was flush against mine.

But I was not clear minded. I was quickly losing conscious. I felt my hand grow slack and it released my treasure, the most beautiful, blood red apple I had climbed over walls and up trees for. It rolled to the ground, and all I could think off before lapsing into oblivion was, "What a shame."

My head lolled forward as my body went limp, and all was black.

* * *

Had Sasuke thought back on it, Kira's breath had been sweet like the apples ripe for the picking, and her lips were soft and yielding as cotton. But the only thing he could comprehend was what was sure to a few thousand watts of electricity coursing through his body.

He had seen her eyes droop close and her head slump forward. It was all bad positioning on his behalf, and it really was just an accident.

But when she lost conscious, her lips grazed his and Sasuke was numb in the face and pins-and-needles all over his skin and underneath it too. His eyelashes were singed as were his collar and his bangs. His eyebrows were smoking, and … well, Sasuke wouldn't be needing his lip waxed anytime soon.

He was flung back by the force and landed in two meters away. Kira crumpled in a heap by the wall.

He sat up and ran fingers across his lower lip, his eyes never leaving the girl who had been his greatest peer nemesis. "_Hn_," he snorted. It had been a little bright spot in his life when she and the rest of her insufferable clan had 'disappeared', but the year without the pseudo-companionship that was their rivalry had been painfully lonely.

Sasuke almost missed the pins-and-needles feeling that only Kira Megamiko could induce with a brush of her finger and a twinkle in her eye. _Almost_.

Sasuke, however, did miss setting her fancy kimonos on fire and cutting her precious hair.

Good times, good times.

_

* * *

_

I was in an opening in the woods targets and straw dummies littered the trees and various wooden posts. A boy with an expression that could not be expressed as anything but guilt stood by a large punching bag that could have easily switched places with him and given him a beating. He looked to be about five. A girl was holding a dead rabbit in her arms. Her size suggested that she was three, maybe four at most. However, her proportions hinted that she was three or even four. She was well loved, if the care that went into dressing her and braiding her hair was any indication. But, even with her hair in a frump, her bangs forming a silver sheet that obscured her eyes, I knew she was crying.

_Against her dark blue dress, the little white rabbit's outline was all too evident. The boy with dark hair and bright dark eyes stood a meter way, a bloody shuriken hanging from a finger._

_"You're that little Megamiko girl," the little boy mumbled, his statement more of a question than a statement. He shuffled from foot to foot. "Megamiko-dono's little girl. I've see you at the New Year's Celebrations … and you steal apples from our garden."_

_The girl kept on sobbing. The little boy looked really uncomfortable, and kept looking over his shoulder. I almost felt sorry for him._

_"I'm sorry I killed your rabbit. Please don't tell my otou-san." He paused, thinking. He then tried to smile winningly, but as the girl began to pick herself and the dead rabbit up, the smile began to falter. "Or my oba-san. Please, Megamiko-chan. I can teach you how this cool trick with the shuriken, or I can give you some apples--"_

_"Stupid! Idiot!" The little girl's eyes gleamed behind her veil of silver hair. She struggled with her next words, trying to rack through her brain to find the most insulting names she's heard in her short life. "You … you Uchiha _**stupidiot**_! I don't want your stupid dango. I want my Usagi back!! I don't want your shuriken trick either – you obviously can throw worth my daddy's sweaty socks! Were you even aiming at the target? I don't see how you could possibly miss from that distance, I can hit dead center from three times that. I'm going to tell your daddy, and I'm going to tell your mommy, and I'm going to tell Itachi-kun too, Sasuke the Stupidiot!"_

_At this, Sasuke turned white, but anger crept into his shaded eyes as well._

_"I hope crows poop on you. Even from the sky, they have better aim than you do. My _**blind obaa-chan**_ has better aim than you. I hope your mommy hangs you upside down from your apple tree then I can use you as shuriken practice. _**I am going to tell on you**_."_

_She turned on her heel and walked away as quickly as her short legs could carry her out of the opening and towards her and his home. After getting over his shock, Sasuke gave chase and caught the little girl by the shoulder._

**Wrong move.**

_The girl, clearly enraged at this point, spun around and interlocked her small hand in his. With the dead bunny on the ground and her free hand pointed at the sky, she screamed a sharp note and a single stream of lightning fell out the perfectly clear sky and made contact with her finger, even though there were several taller objects to strike. The lightning coursed down her left arm to her thin right shoulder where it bunched up shot out her hand and into his. The cruel thing was that she held on to Sasuke's until all the lightning had drained out of her and into his arm. He slumped unconscious into a circle scorched grass._

_"Oh, Kitchan!" An auburn-haired girl, probably seven or so, appeared seconds later on the beaten pathway. She ran to inspect Sasuke's body. Another girl, this one about nine or ten, floated forward, her hair, like the little girls', also a shocking color – white. "You know dad doesn't like it when you fry people. Besides, you could have killed him."_

_"He killed Usagi, Nao-chan." the little girl, Kitchan, pouted, pointing to the little corpse. "And besides, all that was static shock, not actual lightning." She crouched to pick up the rabbit and ran to the second girl. "Musei-chan, can you do it again? Pretty please?"_

_Without a word, 'Musei-chan' placed a slim hand with extraordinarily long fingers on the dead animal. Her irises disappeared entirely for a second before reappearing once again. The rabbit twitched in Kitchan's outstretched hands before rolling over and jumping onto the grass, once again making an escape attempt._

"Wait! Come back, Usagi-chan! Kitchan needs to give you a bath!! Obaa-chan said she would cook you for stew if you always smelled like pee!!!"

_Naoea raised an eyebrow. "Did she actually say that?"_

_Museishouten nodded._

_Sasuke sat up with a groan just as the rabbit flew into his arms, effectively shoving him back down. Sasuke moaned before jolting. "Kami!"_

_Kira finally caught up with the rabbit and began to unwittingly strangle it. She sat on Sasuke's chest, knocking all wind from his lungs. She turned and with a glare that no four year old should have, she whispered. "Touch me or my bunny again and I'll use real lightning, Sasuke Stupidiot."_

_"But…" Sasuke wheezed. Naoea lifted a hand and he began to breathe properly. "…it was dead – its head was just about sliced off…"_

_Kira patted his cheek with her doll-like hand and said in her best impression of Sasuke's mother, "You were imagining things, stupidiot." Her fingers were crossed behind her back._

* * *

I lurched forward and gasped for air. Like a starving wolf, I consumed the air, heaving in and expelling great lungful by lungful.

_In. Out.  
Capture. Release.  
Inhale. Exhale._

Breathe. _**Breathe**_.

_'Don't forget to breathe Kira.'_

I slowly came to recognize the room. It was my hospital room. Small and spotless. White in shades and shadows – sterile and stifling.

As I blew out a strained breath, a sheet of rice paper fluttered on the wall. Written on it, in a slanted scrawl, was:

_"Kira, Megamiko-chan,  
__You caused quite a stir today, young lady.  
__You shorted out the village electricity system, injuring several villagers in the process.  
Y__ou disappeared and were found unconscious and bleeding by Uchiha Sasuke. You have a slight concussion and your hair looks like a dog chewed on it. Have you been wandering the Inuzaka compounds?_

_Until further notice, you are not allowed out of your room without supervision. Any food or service you want or need can and will be provided to you here, within reason._

_Regards, Nara Shikaku-san, Hospital Management_

_P.S. – the windows are now barred. All repair and reparations costs for any damage you have wreaked today will be taken from your family funds."_

"Family funds? I have family funds?" The reading had been slow and painful, as the characters seemed to crawl, fly, and procreate with each other before their meanings became apparent. "I have family—what? Whatever. And what's this about my hair looking like its been--"

I reached up and ran my head down the lengths of my hair and found that chunks were missing, the ends were uneven, and small clumps came out easily with the slightest tug. I combed my hair with my fingers and out came a mass of hair the size of a small dog.

It started out with an odd choke, but it found fuel in the air and soon grew into a shrill scream. _My __**hair**_, I thought. "_AIEEE!!_" I said.

The piece of paper combusted and in shock I dropped it and scuttled back in my bed. My white sheets were now dotted with black ashes and the scent of burning lingered in air. Searing pain clenched my left into a fist and the echoes of my previous scream of indignation were drowned out by my second shriek, this time of pain.

The pain, I somehow knew, felt like having my skin peeled away bit by bit and sluicing the wound with salt and acid. With shaking limbs and heavy breaths, I brought my eyes to my wrist and just as the pain subsided, a circlet of silver gleamed in the late afternoon light. Shadows and highlights within the silver skin, which was approximately half the width of my pinkie.

"Megamiko-chan? Are you alright?"

The voice, a gentle, soft-spoken, and an overwhelmingly motherly voice, had sounded through the white silk screen door. The shock completely banished the pain.

"Y-ye-yes?" I spluttered out, wiping my forehead with the back of my left hand, and the mark sparked and flickered. Panicking, I seized the troublesome wrist and prayed nothing more would happen. "Ye-yes. I am."

The woman slid open the door and her eyes drew mine like magnets; bloodshot and crimson, her pale skin and ebony hair only emphasized her bizarre eyes.

Images flickered through my mind. None of them stuck; all were fleeting likeness of her, smiling, talking with someone else, playing with a redhead boy with peridot eyes and a girl with white hair, white skin, and frighteningly white eyes. The girl I've seen somewhere, I am sure.

"Megami … Kitchan?" The woman asked as she walked near. I held my hand behind my back and I stared, unable to look away. Pretty, she was, but familiar she was even more. But for the life of me, I couldn't place her. "Kitchan? Kitchan, you know me. Kitchan?"

I shook my head without taking my eyes off of her. "Why do you keep saying that?"

She blinked. "What?"

"Kitchan. You and other people keep on saying 'Kitchan-Kitchan-Kitchan'. Why? I do not understand what 'Kitchan' means. People have been saying that all day, and it has become very annoying."

She blinked once more. And again. And then, in a strangled whisper, she asked, "Who are you? What happened to my Kira-chan, my _Kitchan_?!"

This time I blinked.

"I do not know."

It was the answer to both questions.

* * *

The woman left, tears marking her retreat. The door slid shut and I heard her light footsteps tap-tap-tap away down the dark exit.

_Who am I?_

I wanted to remember, but I couldn't. I tried to rack my mind for any clue of who I was, but the harder I thought, the blanker my mind became. It was like sky on a cloudless, sunny day, not unlike the one outside my window. There was nothing, no matter what I tried to do, no matter how I mustered.

And it frightened me.

My mind was _completely_ blank.

Except for it.

It was not a memory, or was it? No, more like a feeling. _A feeling of intense dislike. A boiling, fuming anger. And a moaning sadness._

But for what?

What would I hate? What would I be angry at? What, or who, would I possibly feel sad for?

I clutched my head, the heel of my hands digging into my temples, trying to drown out the ringing void in my mind.

I kicked the dresser and the top drawer slid open in protest. Unlike this morning, or what I thought was this morning, it was not empty. On its side was a perfectly round, pristinely red apple that beckoned consumption. Its scent wafted out of the drawer and into my nose, summoning vague half-formed recollections from what I believed to be the past. I reached out to take the apple, but paused.

A wall. An orchard. A tree.

A boy.

A boy?

**The** boy.

His face, I remembered, was startlingly in pain for someone as young has he. Beautiful, yes, but in pain. There had been other sentiments highlighting his features –shock, anger, annoyance, disbelief– but all were negligible in comparison to the hurt that cast shadows beneath his eyes and within them.

The apple had been from his garden, but why was it _here_?

Shrugging, I took a bite.

* * *

**Author's Note**

060609

1) I'm terrible at updating; tell me something I don't know. ^^  
2) I'm took my SATIIs today (fun stuff).  
3) I … need a beta. Jane bailed on me. So did Aaron. Both of them went into uber Asian study combat mode so I'm stuck here with error-littered writing. (Any takers?)  
4) If you spot any mistakes, please tell me. Typos and bad grammar annoys me as much as it annoys the next grammarian. It's just that I can't always catch them.

heartskisses&&**feedback** -- A. Lyra. T-Z.

(many loveglomps to **rumina**, **mandy** **x**, **rienne**, **sheisntbreathing**, and **janellaberries** for reviewing!!)


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